2016 Publishing Wrap-Up

For all intents and purposes, 2016 was my second full year of self-publishing.  Here's how everything shook out in the year...

First off, I published 3 more titles, bringing my total of published titles to 7.  In Deep Wish went live in March.  Fertile Ground went live in May.  Up Wish Creek went live in September.  Natural Causes was supposed to be live in November, but due to a case of burn out (I crashed and burned), that didn't happen.

Copies sold:
In Deep Wish = 50.44
Fertile Ground = 65.28
Up Wish Creek = 24.07

Umm, yah.

My other titles sold as follows in 2016:
Dying Embers = 300.39
Accidental Death = 46.58
Wish in One Hand = 154.07
Blood Flow = 51.79

As you can probably guess, I did some advertising for Dying Embers and some for Wish in One Hand.  I also did some advertising for Blood Flow, but the numbers don't bear that out quite as well.

All in all I sold 692.63 books in 2016.  500 of those were whole books (490 ebooks, 3 print books) and 199.63 were books in KU pages*.  As for KU, this year people read 79650 pages worth of my books.  Sounds like a lot, but like I said, it only works out to about 200 books.

Last year was, of course, better.  I finished 2015 with 1016.77 books sold and only 4 books available.  But my advertising budget was bigger last year.  I expect that accounts for most of the difference in sales numbers.

Here's the month by month:

January = 15.28
February = 30.40
March = 90.97
April = 28.13
May = 193.41
June = 115.04
July = 44.57
August = 20.46
September = 19.56
October = 10.30
November = 94.39
December = 30.11

You can tell where I did advertising and/or promotions.  

This year I averaged $1.14 per book.  Last year, I averaged $1.34 books.  I attribute that to selling more paperbacks last year and having more 99c sales this year. 

If you're still with me after all that, here're the grand totals for my 2 year self-publishing experience...

Total Books Sold = 1709.40
DE = 814.65
AD = 467.82
WIOH = 217.59
BF = 69.55
IDW = 50.44
FG = 65.28
UWC = 24.07

This has netted me just over $2100.  We won't talk about what I've spent - mainly because I would rather not look at that data right now.  Let's just say it's enough to pay off Dying Embers and part of Accidental Death.  Woo.

As always, my experiences may not be your experiences.  I post this to show others what the hard numbers are, so they can be informed about going the self-publishing route.  It ain't the easy road to wealth and happiness.  At least it hasn't been for me.  Good thing this is a labor of love.

Sometimes I wonder whether I should've just continued to try and get traditionally published.  Then I hear about another publisher going belly up and screwing both readers and writers.  That shit totally makes me happy where I am, even if I'm not shooting toward the top of the bestsellers lists and buying a new car with my profits**. 

Anyway, if you purchased any of my books, I'm totally grateful and I hope you enjoyed the read.  If you get a chance, leave a review on Amazon for me and/or rate it on Goodreads.  I'd really appreciate that, too.


*I use formulas for each book - Pages Read divided by Total Pages - to calculate how much of a book someone in the Kindle Unlimited subscription service has read.

** In case you're wondering, I drive a 2003 Chevy Cavalier.  It looks like hell, but it's only got 70K miles and it runs like a dream... :fingers crossed it lasts at least another year:  :knocks on wood, too, for good measure: